Featured image: A pair of macaws in flight. The Amazon basin is under extreme threat, as the Brazilian government passes measure after measure to gut environmental, indigenous and social movement protections. Photo by Rhett A. Butler
“The first five months of 2017 have been the most violent this century,” Cândido Neto da Cunha, a specialist in agrarian affairs at the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA) in Santarém, Brazil, told Mongabay. According to the Catholic Church’s Pastoral Land Commission (CPT), which has been compiling statistics on rural violence since 1985, 36 people have already been assassinated in rural conflicts this year.
The latest violence came on 24 May when nine men and a woman were killed in what seems to have been a deliberate massacre on the Santa Lúcia estate in the rural district of Pau D’Arco located 860 kilometers (535 miles) south of Belém, the capital of the state of Pará.
For many years, landless families had lobbied for the creation of a land reform settlement on this estate, saying that the man claiming to own the land, now deceased, was a land thief. His widow agreed to hand over the property, but had second thoughts when INCRA officials, who cannot pay above the market price, refused to pay her what she asked.
In the meantime, landless families had occupied the area and a security guard, working for the ranch, was killed on 30 April. A posse of military and civil police went in to evict the families and to investigate the death. The families say the police arrived shooting. This version is disputed by the police, who claim that the peasant families shot at them first. However, no police officer was killed or wounded.
A landless peasant occupation at KM Mil, a settlement near the Thousand Kilometer marker on highway BR 163 near the town of Novo Progresso in Pará state, Brazil. Violence against peasants involved in the agrarian reform movement is increasing across the nation as wealthy land thieves are emboldened by the Temer administration which has done little to stop the attacks. Photo by Thais Borges
As Cunha pointed out, this is only the latest in a series of violent land conflicts this year. On 19 April, ten peasants, including children, were tortured and then murdered in the rural district of Colniza in the northwest of Mato Grosso. On 30 April a group of Gamela Indians were attacked by a large group of armed men sent in by farmers. Over two dozen Indians were injured, with four hospitalised in critical condition. Two had their hands lopped off and their legs cut at the joints.
On 25 May, 19 organizations, including the CPT and the landless movements (MST), published a letter in which they railed against the systematic “impunity of human rights violations in the countryside.” They went on: “The State is not only complicit and absent… but also an active agent in encouraging the violence, not only through the policies and programs carried out by the Executive, but also by the action of the Legislative which is destroying rights won by the workers.”
Wave of violence spurred by bancada militancy
Cunha made a similar point, linking the spike in violence to the government’s rapid dismantling of environmental laws, agrarian reforms and indigenous protections, a process that gained greater momentum, he said, after Osmar Serraglio, a well-known member of the bancada ruralista agribusiness lobby in Congress, was appointed Justice Minister in February.
“Violence is one of the ways in which agribusiness and land thieves get rid of ‘obstacles’ to their never-ending expansion,” explained Cunha.
Indigenous leaders tear-gassed by police in front of Brazil’s National Congress in April. They were protesting the surging violence against Indians seen since Temer took power, as well as the government’s assaults on indigenous land rights. Photo by Wilson Dias courtesy of Agencia Brasil
However, his, or even Temer’s, removal seems unlikely to threaten the power of the bancada. Even if the President falls, a scenario that seems increasingly likely, the agribusiness lobby will remain strong — or grow even stronger. That’s because the bancada holds a firm grip on Congress, which will likely have a big say in selecting Temer’s successor who will most likely be chosen in indirect elections in Congress.
The only way that the agribusiness lobby’s power might be challenged is if Congress passes a constitutional amendment that mandates immediate direct elections for president — a solution to the crisis many social movements are demanding, but which, as yet, seems unlikely to happen.
Agribusiness attacks on indigenous rights
For the moment, the bancada (the members of which have again refused to grant Mongabay an interview), is pressing ahead with a program that heavily favors agribusiness and is extraordinarily hostile to Indians, the environment and social movements.
On 30 May a Parliamentary Commission of Enquiry into FUNAI, the federal agency responsible for Indian affairs, and INCRA (the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform), approved the final version of its report. The Commission, whose members came mainly from the bancada, called for 67 people to be indicted for allegedly illegal activities in support of the indigenous movement. The list included a former justice minister (José Eduardo Cardozo), anthropologists, FUNAI employees, INCRA employees and 30 Indians.
Brazil’s large scale farmers and commodities companies (such as Amaggi), aren’t the only ones to benefit wildly from an agribusiness-friendly Brazilian government that attacks indigenous land rights and environmental protections. International commodities companies like ADM, Cargill and Bunge will also greatly benefit. Photo by Thais Borges
The list of names will be handed to the Public Ministry and other authorities for possible prosecution. Though no other action has yet been taken against those named in the list, the report has created a climate of trepidation, with many of those named by the Parliamentary Commission fearful of possible arrest and prosecution.
The report’s rapporteur, Nilson Leitão, who had initially called for the closing down of FUNAI, changed his position, in the face of widespread criticism, with the report proposing, instead, the “restructuring” of FUNAI.
A massive communal and arson attack on four Jumma localities was carried by the Bengali Muslim settlers with the support of army and police in Longadu under Rangamati hill district of Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) on 2 June 2017. This organized and army-police-backed arson and communal attack claimed more than 300 Jumma houses burnt to ashes, of which it counts more than 200 houses and shops in Tintila of Longadu upazila headquarters and more 120 houses (around 40 houses in each of the three villages) in Manikjorchara, Battya Para and Baradom villages to have been completely burnt down. It is reported that at least an aged woman named Guna Mala Chakma (75) w/o late Rabichan Chakma was killed in this arson attack. Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti (PCJSS) expresses strong protest and condemnation over the setting fire and looting in the houses of indigenous Jumma peoples and massive communal attack.
It is learnt that centering recovery of a dead body identified to be of a driver of motor cycle Nurul Islam Nayon in Khagrachari, a belligerent procession of the Bengali Muslim settlers from Battya Para of Longadu upazila took to street under coverage of the army and police forces around 9:00 am. When the procession reached at Longadu upazila headquarters around 10:00 am, the settlers from within the procession began looting and setting fire in the Jumma houses and shops including the PCJSS office without any provocation. At this, 200 houses and shops belonging Jumma people got burnt down. Afterward, the Bengali Muslim settlers left for nearby Manikjorchara to attack the village under army and police force protection. At this, around 40 houses of the village were completely reduced to ashes.
The local administration promulgated Section 144 around 12:00 noon. But it was learnt that despite being so, the settlers moved ahead under army-police guard and set fire in the villages of South Manikjorechara, Battya Para, Boradam, etc. Jumma localities and these were being carried out at the time of origination of this report. In this attack, 30/35 houses in Battya Para and 40 houses in Boradom villages were burnt to ashes.
On receipt of the news of setting out a procession with the dead body last night, the local Jumma public representatives and leaders called on Longadu army zone and Longadu police station authorities to apprise their sense of danger and lacking of security. This morning, the 2nd-in-Command (2IC) Major Rafique of Longadu army zone assured on behalf of the army zone saying: “Staging procession is a democratic right of the settlers. They will exercise their right peacefully. No untoward incident will be allowed to happen. Hence, there is nothing to be worried.” Saying so, the commander assured the local Jumma public representatives and leaders, but it is a great irony that the settlers carried out organized attacks, looted and set fire in the Jumma houses and shops in all time presence of Longadu Zone Commander Lt. Col. Abdul Alim Choudhury psc, 2IC Major Rafique and Officer-In-Charge (OC) of Longadu police station Mominul Islam along with the joint forces.
It is learnt that the militant procession of the settlers was also participated by the national parties irrespective of their ideologies and differences, such as, ruling Awami League, BNP, Jatiya Party, Jamat-E-Islam etc. including the so-called Parbatya Chattagram Samo Odhikar Andolan (CHT Equal Rights Movement) and other upstarts organizations of the settlers. As part of their solidarity, Juba League, youth wing of the ruling party, organized a procession at 11:00 am today in Rangamati town in protest against killing of the said motor bike driver. It has been reported that anti-Jumma communal slogans were shouted during the demonstration.
Despite assurance given on part of the army and police authorities, the unabated looting and arson attack in the Jumma houses in the very presence of the authorities who ensured verbal assurance, it can safely be concluded that the Bengali Muslim settlers procession with the dead body has been a deliberate one in orchestration of the army-police forces and local leadership of the ruling party.
PCJSS considers this sort of organized communal and arson attack that happened today, has been conducted with the support of state machineries and local leadership of the ruling party to evict the Jumma people from their ancestral lands, to obstruct the implementation process of the CHT Accord, and over all to achieve their mean objective of turning the CHT region into a Muslim-dominated region.
The PCJSS, calls upon all the parties concerned to stop the army-police-backed communal and arson attacks by the Bengali Muslim settlers and to step up legal measures to bring all those army-police personnel and settlers responsible for the attack, looting and arson in the Jumma houses and shops, on an emergency basis.
In a press release signed by Assistant Information and Publicity Secretary of Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti (PCJSS) Sajib Chakma dated 1 June 2017, PCJSS strongly protested against illegal search in the house of Areise Marma, President of PCJSS Raikhali Union Branch and and ill-attempt of planting explosive materials inside the house, beating and undue harassment upon his family members.
PCJSS says, a BGB troop of 19 Battalion from Wagga BGB Zone and Dongchari BGB camp entered the No.1 Para of Narangirimukh under Kaptai Upazila of Rangamati Hill District and conducted a thorough search in the house of Areise Marma (55), President Mv Raikhali Union Branch of PCJSS at the wee hours of today, 1 June 2017. It was learnt that the BGB searching party handcuffed Mathuiching Marma, wife of Areise Marma and slapped their daughter Unuching Marma.
As per the statement on the occurrence, the BGB personnel surrounded Areise Marma’s house at 01:30 am and having waken up the inmates of the house, began their search and this continued till 4:00 am. The BGB searching party were looking for Areise Marma who was not at home by then. At certain point of their search, Unuching Marama, daughter of Areise Marma noticed the BGB personnel digging the inside floor by theft and planting some explosive materials taken out from their bag that they carried along with and soon she offered challenge saying that it was they who brought in those articles, which were never part of their household objects. The BGB person concerned, for being unsuccessful, got tempered and slapped Unuching Marma with might.
At certain phase of searching, the BGB personnel locked Mathuiching Marma, wife of Areise Marma with handcuff. They entered into the bedroom of Areise Marma’s son and daughter-in-law and muddled the household articles including the wears and all. They snatched the mobile phones from the family members and mounted heavy pressure upon them seeking to know whereabouts of the arms and show the cached arms to them. The BGB kept them under threatening of sending to jail and filing up cases against them, if they did not show the location of the arms. The BGB personnel did not let them go to bed and harassed all the family members outside their house till 4:00 am. While leaving around 4.00 am they BGB wrote a note in a piece of white paper stating that nothing was done to the family members and made Unuching put her signature in the paper.
The PCJSS strongly protests against such conspiring and ill-attempt of planting explosive materials inside the house of Areise Marma, President of PCJSS Raikhali Union Branch, beating and undue harassment upon his family members and demands immediate stop to such conspiring and illegal searching.
It is worthy to be cited here that a group of BGB personnel from Wagga BGB Zone arrested No.4 Raikhali Union Council member and also Vice-President of PCJSS Raikhali Union Committee and his son Kyawhing Hla Marma, President of Kaptai Thana Branch of Pahari Chhatra Parishad by unknowingly planting explosive materials inside their house on 31 March 2017. They were taken to Rangamati Amy Zone and brought out heavy inhuman torture upon them. The BGB and Army Zone authorities made the severely wounded father and son say what they were taught to confess to the local press media.
In recent days, searching operation elsewhere by army and BGB, filing up false-based and fabricated cases entangling the Jumma people including the PCJSS members engaged in the movement for rights and implementation of the CHT Accord, taking the arrested by secretly planting fire arms and sending to jail, meting out physical torture and harassment have become a very common scenario with intensity. The PCJSS has the ground to believe all this design to have been being directed to achieve mean objectives of identifying the just movement for implementation of the CHT Accord as an act of terrorism, destroying the dynamic leadership of PCJSS and over all, to obstruct the implementation process of the CHT Accord and to utter surprise to note that the atrocities upon the members of PCJSS and its associate organizations are being meted out by the army-BGB-police forces with the support of the ruling party, the misdeeds of which can never yield in wellbeing to the national interest.
Featured image: Nearly 1,000 Wixárika community members participated in a mobilization led by Miguel Vázquez Torres Sept. 22, 2016, to reclaim the first parcel of 10,000 hectares being contested in the federal agrarian tribunal. Photo: Abraham Pérez
GUADALAJARA — As commissioner of public lands for the indigenous Wixárika territory of San Sebastian Teponahuaxtlán, Miguel Vázquez Torres was at the forefront of the legal fight to recover 10,000 hectares of indigenous ancestral lands from surrounding ranching communities. He was among those who repeatedly urged the federal and state governments to intervene to prevent violence in the increasingly tense region that had been the subject of land conflicts for more than a century and, more recently, an increasing presence on the part of the drug cartels.
So it was particularly painful to learn that Miguel and his brother, Agustín, a young attorney also active in the land restitution project have become victims of the violence that they had worked so hard to avoid. They were both gunned down on Saturday. Preliminary investigations implicate an organized crime cell operating on the border between Jalisco and Zacatecas states.
Miguel Vázquez Torres, the Wixarika leader most responsible for mobilizing an effort to reclaim 10,000 hectares of ancestral lands, shows the vast expanse of lands belonging to San Sebastian Teponahuaxtlan. Photo: Nelson Denman photo.
Alfonso Hernández Barron, inspector for the State Commission on Human Rights, had worked with both of the victims extensively over the years. Agustín had just finished his professional practice as a human rights attorney under Hernández’ tutelage and was preparing to take on a greater responsibility in the land restitution case.
“He was a young man who was always seeking to improve himself, a man of peaceful profile, a hard worker.”
Agustín left a wife and a young daughter, as did Miguel.
Hernández described Miguel as a leader who headed the greatest effort in many years for the recovery and defense of his peoples’ territory – a historic effort in many respects.
“He was held in very high esteem and recognition,” said Hernandez. “This is a wound to the heart of the community, and not just Tuxpan and San Sebastian, but all the communities – because all the leaders of the communities feel increasingly exposed, and at greater risk for representing and defending their people.”
Hernández called from the long road that leads back to Guadalajara from Tuxpan, heavy-hearted after a Tuesday visit to the community to debrief residents on their rights as victims. He found community members frightened, sad and angry. “You can feel it,” he said. “It’s palpable.”
The background
Miguel Vázquez served as guide and host to an Intercontinental Cry team, including this reporter, who went to investigate the community’s land restitution process last year. We traveled extensively together in the sprawling 240,000-hectare territory of San Sebastian and Tuxpan de Bolaños, in the state of Jalisco. After a nearly 50-year battle for 10,000 hectares (24,710 acres) across the state line in Nayarit, the courts were now in the process of returning this land to the Wixárika community, which held the title dating back to the Spanish crown. Ranchers who held titles dating to the early 1900s had farmed the land for generations and were resisting the take-back. Some of them were spoiling for a fight.
Miguel Vázquez Torres, left, goes over a map of the territory to be restituted on Sept. 22, 2016, with Wixárika attorney Santos de la Cruz Carrillo. Photo: Abraham Pérez.
After the first in a series of court rulings in favor of the Wixaritari, community leaders including Miguel had repeatedly petitioned the federal government to indemnify the ranchers under a federal fund set up to prevent violence in cases such as this one. They also asked the state and federal governments to provide security and to help enforce the Sept. 22 transfer of the 184-hectare parcel, an abandoned ranch near the town of Huajimic.
Despite threats from ranchers who did not accept the validity of the court ruling, the government failed to respond to their pleas, Vázquez said. So on the day that the court had set for the land transfer, he and other leaders mobilized nearly 1,000 community members to meet the federal agrarian officials and occupy the land.
Angry ranchers responded by setting up a roadblock and refusing to let the court officials, attorneys, journalists and Huichols leave. Vázquez was among those who negotiated directly with leaders in the ranching community of Huajimic to set up a dialog table, and for months the group met in an attempt to pressure the government to indemnify the ranchers who were being forced to relinquish their lands. The government responded that the country was faced with too many land disputes and not enough money in the special fund.
In a March telephone interview with IC, Vázquez said there had been no progress in the negotiations because the government had not responded to further petitions on the part of the dialog table. He mentioned that they were preparing to take action on another restitution claim, and he confirmed media reports that the community was seeking to organize an armed self-defense group. Vázquez and other community leaders were involved in discussions with state law enforcement representatives about the establishment of such a community police force when he and his brother were killed.
Photo: Abraham Pérez
Living in fear
Santos Hernandez, the new public lands commissioner that Miguel Vázquez had prepared for this role, spoke to IC by telephone on Tuesday, and confirmed Hernández’ assessment.
“Nobody feels like working or traveling in their cars – they are watching all of us and our families,” he said of cartel operatives in the area. The government has been extremely slow to respond to calls for help, he said. Since the homicides the government has sent in a special force, and Hernandez said he hopes they will staff checkpoints on the roads and maintain a permanent presence.
“This has been the community’s concern; we have asked for this, and they haven’t responded. Now with what has happened, I think we have the right to more vigilance.”
State human rights inspector Hernández worried that the attacks pose a threat to the cultural integrity of the Wixárika People.
“This is a native people that has a communal sense of identity, so it affects the community as a whole, because they see their customs and traditions being threatened.”
Photo: Abraham Pérez
Warnings unheeded
Authorities at the federal and state levels had repeatedly asked for government intervention in the troubled area. Two separate congressional resolutions, one at the federal and one at the state level, had been passed in recent months urging restitution of the ranchers and for the state governments to provide greater security in the region.
Rep. Clemente Castañeda, House Minority Speaker in the Mexican Congress representing the national Citizen’s Movement Party, said that state government officials should have intervened in the region in a serious way a long time ago.
“The federal and state congresses gave timely warning to the governments of Nayarit and Jalisco about the risks present in the northern zone (of Jalisco), and what might occur – and what lamentably has just occurred,” said Castañeda, who sponsored a resolution calling for restitution and greater security in the region. The resolution passed the full Mexican Congress on Feb. 14 of this year.
The brothers’ homicide may or may not be related to their public role in the land restitution case, he said, but if the government knew that organized crime was operating in the area, he said, there was even more reason to have a strong presence there.
“The easiest thing is to say that it’s an isolated case,” said Castañeda. “However it seems like too much of a coincidence that this assassination took place in the middle of a very prolonged land dispute that has left the zone in permanent conflict.”
For more than 100 years, ranchers have farmed the 10,000 hectares around Huajimic that the Wixarika people are now reclaiming under a series of court orders recognizing their title from the Spanish crown. Photo: Abraham Pérez
Rep. Fela Pelayo, the head of Jalisco’s congressional commission for indigenous affairs, has been petitioning the government since last fall to intervene in the territory. She sponsored a similar resolution that passed the Jalisco state congress unanimously in October, less than a month after the tense standoff in Huajimic. In late January, she learned that the Wixárika leaders were planning to establish an armed self-defense force in the face of governmental action and continued threats. She became alarmed and called a press conference to urge the government to act.
“We solicited the governor of the state to attend to this problem; we said that the situation was delicate, and that we could have the possibility of the loss of human lives,” she told IC. “Now, after eight months of inaction, we have two indigenous leaders dead.”
Guadalajara anthropologist Francisco Talavera Durón has worked closely with Pelayo and others throughout the region who have sought to support the Wixarika community over the years.
He remembered sadly some of the last words he heard from Miguel, who was speaking at a press conference on the lack of government intervention.
“We indigenous people don’t represent political capital for the political parties; that’s why they don’t have us on their agendas,” Miguel said at the time.
“He said there was such a profound abandonment – and now we are seeing it with the deaths of these two brothers.”
Talavera said the Wixárika territories are among the most abandoned in the country – not just on the physical level, with a lack of roads and infrastructure, but also from the perspective of justice and basic legal protections.
“For me the deaths of Miguel and Agustín represent a huge blow to indigenous leadership,” he said. “We’re very worried because there are many indigenous leaders in the entire state who are defending their territories, and with the deaths of these two companions it puts them in a doubly vulnerable situation and on high alert.
“If the government has knowledge that the cartels are operating there, and if the question of territorial conflict is clear, why was there no protection on the part of the state? The community has had to create their own security circles and take charge of the vigilance of their leaders. This should be the responsibility of the state of Jalisco.”
An inquiry established by Brazilian parliamentarians who represent the powerful agribusiness lobby has just published a report calling for the closure of the Indian Affairs Department, FUNAI.
Its findings have been met with outrage and incredulity in Brazil and beyond. Francisco Runja, a Kaingang spokesman said: “Killing off FUNAI is tantamount to killing us, the indigenous peoples. FUNAI is a crucial institution for us; our survival; our resistance; and it’s a guarantee of the demarcation of our traditional territories.”
The report attacks indigenous leaders, anthropologists, public prosecutors and NGOs, including Survival International.
It alleges that FUNAI has become a “hostage to external interests” and calls for dozens of its officials to be prosecuted for backing what it calls “illegal demarcations” of tribal territories.
Yesterday a group of 50 Indians was barred from attending the session in congress discussing the inquiry.
The inquiry took 500 days and the report is over 3,300 pages long. It is a blatant attack on indigenous peoples and a crude and biased attempt to destroy their hard-won constitutional rights.
It was headed by politicians representing Brazil’s powerful agri-businesses who have long coveted indigenous territories for their own financial gain.
One member, congressman Luis Carlos Heinze, received Survival’s Racist of the Year award in 2014 following his deeply offensive remarks about Brazilian Indians, homosexuals, and black people.
Another member, congressman Alceu Moreira, called for the eviction of tribal people attempting to reoccupy their ancestral lands.
The increasingly hostile, anti-indigenous climate in many sectors in congress is fuelling violence against indigenous peoples. Last month, 22 Gamela Indians were injured following a brutal attack at the hands of local landowners’ gunmen.
FUNAI has suffered severe budget cuts, which have resulted in the grounding of several teams responsible for protecting uncontacted tribes’ territories. This effectively leaves some of the most vulnerable people on the planet to the mercy of armed loggers and land grabbers.
The organization has been greatly weakened. Many staff have been made redundant, and political appointees now run key departments.
In the last five months, it has had three presidents. Earlier this month the second president, Antonio Costa was dismissed. In a press conference he strongly criticized President Temer and Osmar Serraglio, the Minister of Justice, stating that they “not only want to finish off FUNAI, but also public policies such as demarcation of [indigenous] land… This is very serious.”
Yanomami shaman and spokesman Davi Kopenawa said: “FUNAI is broken… it is already dead. They killed it. It only exists in name. A nice name, but it doesn’t have the power to help us.”
The Indian government is harassing and attempting to silence the leaders of the Dongria Kondh tribe, famous for winning a “David and Goliath” court battle against a British mining giant.
The Dongria’s resistance to mining on their lands has continued since their landmark victory in 2014. Leaders including Dodi Pusika feel that the risk of mining remains as long as a refinery is operational at the foot of the Niyamgiri hills, an area which the tribe have been dependent on and managed for generations. A recent protest at the refinery was met with a baton-charge from police.
Pusika’s daughter-in-law, Kuni Sikaka, was arrested in the middle of the night of May 3 and accused of links with armed Maoist rebels. In exchange for her release, Dodi Pusika and other members of his family were made to “surrender” as Maoists and paraded in front of the media.
There has been an alarming increase in arbitrary, politically motivated arrests of tribal people who are resisting mining operations or government policies which endanger their lands and communities. Typically, those arrested are accused of Maoist links – usually without evidence.
Human rights activist and doctor Binayak Sen and tribal teacher Soni Sori have both been imprisoned for alleged Maoist connections and only subsequently released after national and international campaigns.
In April, the Home Ministry issued a report claiming that Maoists were “guiding the activities” of the Dongria’s organization, the Niyamgiri Suraksha Samiti (NSS). On the contrary, Maoists instructed the Dongria to boycott the very meetings at which they delivered their decisive “no” to mining.
Lingaraj Azad, a member of the NSS, stated, ‘We have always opposed violence – either State violence or Maoist violence. We will not bow down, but continue our struggle to protect Niyamgiri from being mined.’
Survival International is calling on the government to drop these fabricated charges, stop this persecution of the Dongria Kondh, respect their decision about the Niyamgiri mine, and to uphold their right to protect their lands and determine their own futures.
Thirteen Brazilian Indians have been hospitalized after a brutally violent attack by men armed with machetes in the Amazon.
One man appears to have had his arms severed in disturbing photos released to Survival International.
The attack was in retaliation for the Gamela Indians’ campaign to recover a small part of their ancestral territory. Their land has been invaded and destroyed by ranchers, loggers and land grabbers, forcing the Gamela to live squeezed on a tiny patch of land. The Gamela are indigenous to the area in Maranhão state in northern Brazil.
Powerful agribusiness interests – reportedly including the Sarney landowning family – have been in conflict with the tribe for some time. The family includes a former president of Brazil and a former governor of Maranhão state.
Eyewitnesses say that the ranchers gathered at a barbecue to get drunk, before surrounding the Gamela camp, firing guns, and then attacking with machetes, causing grievous injuries. Local police are reported to have stood by and allowed the attack to happen.
The Gamela have received death threats in response to their attempts to return to their land. In a declaration released by Brazilian NGOCIMI, they said: “People are mistaken if they think that by killing us they’ll put a stop to our fight. If they kill us, we will just grow again, like seeds… Neither fear nor the ranchers’ bullets can stop us.”
The attack came just days after massive indigenous protests in Brazil’s capital against proposed changes to Brazil’s indigenous laws, which could have disastrous consequences for tribal peoples.
Land theft is the biggest problem tribal peoples face. Around the world, industrialized society is stealing tribal lands in the pursuit of profit.
Campaigners fear that the close ties between Brazil’s agribusiness lobby and the Temer government installed after the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff in 2016 could lead to further genocidal violence and racism against Brazilian tribal peoples.
Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “Right now, we’re witnessing the biggest assault on Brazilian Indians for the last two generations. This truly horrific attack is symptomatic of a sustained and brutal onslaught which is annihilating indigenous communities across the country. Heinous acts like this won’t end until the perpetrators are prosecuted and Brazil starts enforcing tribal land rights as it should do under national and international law.”
